Directed by José Luis Cuerda
Screenplay by Rafael Azcona, from the stories of Manuel Rivas
Photography by Javier Salmones
Music by Alejandro Amenábar

Main Cast: Fernando Fernán-Gómez, Manuel Lozano, Uxía Blanco

In a rural Galician school in the days leading up to the Civil War, a young boy learns about life from his old teacher, who he grows to idolize. But politics intrudes (although the child understands none of it) and loyalties are questioned, leading to a highly-charged finale which throws into relief the themes of corruption, loss of innocence and the (lack of) motivation behind the idea of choice.

Well, I was trying to be a film critic there. Quite good eh? But is the film any good? Oh, almost forgot to mention that. Yes sir, very good, just ask Woody Allen, who says it's one of his favourite movies of recent years. Very poetically written and shot, it's an evocative adaptation of the stories of the excellent young Galician writer Manuel Rivas. Check the film out under the English title BUTTERFLY'S TONGUE if you're interested. I'm sure there were dubbed copies made.

Saw A Beautiful Mind and don't understand why it's a big popular and critical hit with the possiblity of winning a Best Picture Oscar--I thought it was dreck.

If watching a guy shake and stutter and dotter for 90 minutes is entertaining, then this is your movie. Sure, Russell Crowe is good at it, but it's still dottering.

Putting aside the fact that the life of John Nash was much different than as portrayed in the film and he's not the sympathetic person he appears to be in the movie, there is at the heart of this film an even bigger lie--that personal willpower and a good marriage can save anyone.

The film presents schizophrenia in simplistic terms and makes it appear easy to overcome or put into perspective. If Nash can function today it's because of medication and the fact he had an exceptional brain to begin with, not because he had strength of character and a wife that looked like a babe.

The film does a few things well: you see his delusions from his perspective as real and so can get inside how convincing they are and then it makes a narrative switch that mirrors what it must be like to come back to reality. It also constrasts the idea of pulp heroism with a more common realistic heroism: who is the greater hero, the man with exceptional faculties who can engage in espionage or the simple man who can deal with mental illness. Just the same, I was sorry to see the thriller part go--it was a lot more interesting than Nash's real story.

But, it's not the courageous film some might think it is. Sure, a socially awkward, mentally ill person is not usually the subject of a film, but the story is structured in such a "triumph over adversity" sort of way that it's not taking any real risks either. Ron Howard himself said that if it hadn't had a happy ending, he wouldn't have made the film.

As it is, he doesn't feel he can present the story without other gimmicks besides. Nash's school years have to involve hi-jinks. Then comes a big espionage plot. When the story gets down to its basic facts, there's still "suspense"--will the baby drown, will the wife leave, will Nash listen to the voices in his head telling him to kill her, etc. all which come off as a bad episode of some Lifetime TV movie. These are things that schizophrenics do have to deal with, but the way the film presents it all is for shock value.

I suggest, Lou, you avoid the shamelessly manipulative I Am Sam. Penn is
absolutely marvelous in this role, much better IMHO, than the overrated performance of
Hoffman in Rain Man. However, the film lacks guts. It really needed to tackle the whole
issue of his ability to raise such a bright kid, and whenever it started to explore this issue,
it would soon return to the unrealistic “All You Need Is Love” pat formula. The ending
was inane. I like John Powell’s music, but I heard no inspirational music in this movie.

In The Bedroom ticked off a lot of people in the audience. They resented the slow
pace and the strange, enigmatic ending, which still has me pondering. I loved every
minute of it. Controlling mom and warm fuzzy dad fail to explore their weaknesses as
parents until it is too late. While Spacek is receiving all the Oscar buzz, Tom Wilkerson as
the inept, grieving father gives a gut wrenching performance. One of the few truly
thought provoking movies that I’ve seen in a few years, but it is not for everyone.

Anyway, the point of the movie is that Fonda's really a decent guy at heart, if only someone had given him a break, and the "society is to blame" message, although sledgehammer-subtle, still makes for a quite powerful (and downbeat) movie.

It does have a bit of a chuckle-worthy final scene however, which hasn't really passed the acid test of time (heavenly gates opening, heavenly choir). Alf Newman was quite a specialist in the field of heavenly choirs, and the rest of his score includes a main theme which lends itself to Henry Fonda's whistling etc in some scenes. Or maybe that was a popular song adapted by Newman? You tell me!

YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE (USA 1937)

Directed by Fritz Lang
Screenplay by Graham Baker, from a story by Gene Towne
Photography by Leon Shamroy
Music by Alfred Newman

The other problem is that, in its striving to be "naturalistic", it ends up merely irritating. The supposedly documentary style is just as artificial as stilted stage dialogue, and it draws attention to itself far too much. It's as if the director had put his camera amongst the actors and said "OK, now act natural". And what do they do? They all start mouthing into their big parkas at the same time "muthafokink this and mothafokink that ya dig sho nuff y'know what I mean man fokink muthafokkas." All the characters exist in their own wee world in those scenes. There is absolutely no developed interaction, there is no real conversation between them. Or maybe that's reality.

I'd like to be able to say that there was a kind of raw energy about all this, but the best I can do is acknowledge the portrayal of a certain sense of stalemate between the factions, and perhaps that was the intention.

The music is mostly rap, but there are brief moments of strings and cool bass, similar to Terence Blanchard's scoring of Lee's movies.

NEW JERSEY DRIVE (USA 1995)

Directed by Nick Gomez
Screenplay by Nick Gomez
Photography by Adam Kimmel
Music by Wendy Blackstone

I can see that this movie at least could be accused of being overbearing and somewhat pompous, but the story itself is no mere trifle. I thought it all worked pretty well, and it certainly boasts one of Tom Cruise's better performances, with a little help from the Dennis Weaver/ James Last facial hair department.

The overbearing/ pompous accusation can probably be levelled at John Williams' score too. The Platoonesque-Barberesque (new words) adagio is really shovelled on at every opportunity, and I get the impression that this wasn't done by somebody whose name is John Williams. The brief album is, for me, a lot better balanced, and a heck of a lot more moving than in the film.

BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY (USA 1989)

Directed by Oliver Stone
Screenplay by Oliver Stone and Ron Kovic, from the book by Ron Kovic
Photography by Robert Richardson
Music by John Williams

Well, I finally rented "Planet of the Apes" and ended up almost watching the whole of the 2 discs. Firstly, the disc itself is great with an amazing amount of extras which are actually very interesting if you're interested in how the movie business works. The documentary on Elfman and his commentary were both informative...shame they mixed the sound effects with the music though. The fly on the wall shots of various shoots are fascinating as you actually feel like these guys are just doing a job like you and me, except obviously for the unique circumstances ( and slightly better pay )
So all of the documentaries, commentaries etc were interesting, unfortunately, they were more interesting than the film itself. What is a worrying trend these days is that more thought seems to be put into a DVD package and presentation than the actual script of the movie, with the outcome being a wonderfully interesting and watchable set of documentaries and DVD to what is an average movie overall. Watching the amount of work and preparation that has gone into the costume designs, locations, training etc, you'd think someone could have had a look at the overall script/story and said, hmmm, this needs re-writing. I dont know, maybe it just looked alright on paper but just didn't work on celluloid. Maybe it just goes to show that, even with all the right ingredients, its hell of a difficult to make a classic film. All the ingredients need to come together to make the "whole better than the sum of its parts"...sadly it didn't happen here.
Here are a few of my praises and criticisms of the film.

Rick Baker's make-up was stunning!! Nothing more to say.

The costumes and attention to the ape-characters was impeccable.

The production design overall was pretty good, but seemed less expansive and spectacular than I expected (belying its studio origins maybe for most of the film)

The cast were mostly excellent with the stand outs being Tim Roth and Paul Gambiatti.

Danny Elfman did a pretty good score that worked well in the movie.

My criticisms are these:-

I've never seen Mark Wahlberg in a movie so I was willing to give him a chance. After a few reasonable scenes at the beginning on the spaceship where I realised that his character was going to be the typical strong, silent macho-type hero, as the film progressed I realised that this guy had absolutely no screen charisma whatsoever and seemed to have the same fixed moronic expression on his face throughout the rest of the movie. What on earth inspired Tim Burton to pay this guy $10,000,000 to actually be the key role in the movie? For me, it was a big mistake to make and ruined the central importance of the film. I did'nt care anything for this guy. In the original I was with Heston all the way. At least Heston was capable of showing emotion and genuine concern.

The jungle shots and Ape city scenes were just too "studio based", dark and small feeling for a film of this magnitude. I felt the same about "Sleepy Hollow".

The opening "Hunt" paled into insignificance if you compare it to the epic shots of the original film...big mistake to film 90% of this on a set and it just seemed to be thrown away. Wahlberg had the look on his face of "Oh look, Apes on horseback...there's something you dont see every day!! )
Also, where are the aerial shots to establish a sense of location and scale? There was'nt much feeling of scale in the movie apart from the concluding battle scenes.

Obviously, the film didn't touch on the social issues in the same depth of the original which weakened it severely.

The fact that the humans were not mute (or dumb) was a bad choice. You'd think that if they had the ability to talk and communicate, someone would have organised escape parties and an opposing strong culture etc rather than hang around for a non-entity like Leo(Wahlberg)to turn up. The reason the dumbness of the humans in the original worked so well was because they acted like cattle and were easily controlled.

The ending was just so hilarious. It was as though the movie had suddenly joined up with an episode of "The Twilight Zone" and Leo found himself in a kind of Simian nightmare. I still dont know what to make of this ending. Its definately outrageous, but maybe just a little bit too much. Only time will tell.

Overall the film was a disappointment. It had elements that I really liked (I'm a sucker for sci-fi) but it also had too many elements that I didn't like)
I would score it *** out of *****

Also, before anyone says it, I know that the movie was not a "remake" but a "re-imagining" but you cant talk about this movie without making obvious links to the original.

As a final thought, Elfman mentioned that the "hook" that got Burton on board the project was how he could experiment with the "movement" of the apes. To me thats just a shallow gimmick and you cant make a great film out of good "movement" alone. If he'd had more concern for the story and script and maybe been a bit more consideration of the lead role, he may have had a better film on his hands.

Tim burton is a talented artist but overall he goofed on this one. Maybe though, 10 years from now, when all the hulla-baloo has died down and the $100 million budget has been forgotten a late night screening will inspire the response "Hell, its not as bad as I remembered it!!" It may even improve with age....only time will tell.

Gae

Caught The Endurance in the longer non-IMAX version. Good score by Michael Small except for the Main & End Titles music which I didn't care for at all. The story itself is fascinating but the film is just so-so. I got more out of watching both South and Shackleton's Boat Journey, other films about the same subject. Still, if you're completely unfamiliar with the expedition (as many in the audience seemed to be from their vocal responses during the film), then this might work for you.

Here's a really good Golden Oldie: THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES. As a soap opera, this is hard to beat. And after all those years it still speaks volumes about human relationships in an honest way. Love the "architecture" of the movie too, the way the parallel stories are intertwined. It also achieves a rare feat: it kept me enthralled throughout its three hour running time, so it must be consistently good or something. Great performances, and a marvelous score from Hugo Friedhofer.

Hey everyone, Lou, Howard etc. Did you buy into the manipulative emotions of this film? I was on the verge of getting my Kleenex out, then I remembered that it was only a movie!

THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (USA 1946)

Directed by William Wyler
Screenplay by Robert Sherwood, from a novel by Mackinlay Kantor
Photography by Gregg Toland
Music by Hugo Friedhofer

Anyway, a quick decision had to be made. Oh good, a film I knew even less about than the Gallic-tittied thing. On the poster I could see squinty-headed John Turturro (who I like) and cat-foreheaded Emily Watson (who I don't) dancing on a big chessboard. So I took a chance and went in.

The film was indeed about chess, or at least it had a chess background, and was based on the Nabokov story. Basically, John Turturro is a socially inept genius who uses chess as a barrier against reality, but his world becomes unstuck when he falls in love.

Well, I thought it was okay, but something was lacking. The characters are mostly closed books, and the movie didn't really convey any human passion between the leads (though the passion for chess comes across). I felt the film missed a lot of opportunities to play around with the idea of the mathematical precision of the game versus the spontaneity of love. Actually there is one good scene which effectively addresses the issue, and uses the Shostakovich waltz heard previously in EYES WIDE SHUT, but for the most part the whole thing never seems to get its act together.

The score by Alexandre Desplat sounded quite good. Full and rich, but perhaps a little incessant (which dilutes the effect).

I forgot to mention the name of the film.

THE LUZHIN DEFENCE (UK/ France 2001)

Directed by Marleen Gorris
Screenplay by Peter Berry, from the novel by Vladimir Nabokov
Photography by Bernard Lutic
Music by Alexandre Desplat

Moulin Rouge: I have a hate/love relationship with this movie. I’m glad I rented it on
DVD so at times I could employ the fast forward button and the rewind button.
First of all, strobe-light, blink-of-an-eye editing does not a good movie make. The
director needs to study the time it takes an image on the screen to register in the human
brain. At times, his editing was so annoying, whole musical numbers were blurs. I love
dancing, but I’d like to see at least two whole dance steps before a change. One-eighth of
a dance step just isn’t enough. This is my main complaint. (Too quickly edited and too
many bizarre, freakish characters that made Cabaret seem like a Disney flick.

Still...As good as Kidman was, I was totally hooked by Ewan McGregor’s passionate
singing and heartfelt performance. He was stunning. Some of the numbers between him
and Kidman merited rewinding and reviewing, especially the series of love songs sung on
her roof. The orchestrations of the songs were powerful and some of the best I’ve ever
heard.

Directed by Howard Hawks
Screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur
Photography by Ray June
Music by Alfred Newman

Main Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Miriam Hopkins, Joel McCrea, Brian Donlevy

Headstrong young woman goes to San Francisco during the lawless days of the gold rush and gets involved with the tyrannical owner of the club where she finds a job.

Really enjoyable old melodrama, brisk, atmospheric and deftly handled. Am I sounding like a wine critic yet? Don't get me started on BARBARY COAST's "rich bouquet".

A few observations on the cast:

Edward G.- It's a real barnstorming part, but he seems neither threatening nor pathetic enough. Hard to take those curls and that pirate's earring seriously anyway!

Miriam Hopkins- Quite good. Quite sexy in her frillies too in one scene, a quality she previously exploited in the Fredric March version of DOC JEK AND MR HYDE. And her occasional screaming frenzies here with Ed G also hark back to the scenes she shared with March's Hyde.

Joel McCrea- easy going, likable, I'm really beginning to appreciate this actor.

Brian Donlevy- As Ed G's evil henchman he's very inexpressive. He's also funny looking, with that big head and tiny wee body. Or was this just an optical illusion caused by the incredibly high-waisted trousers? Whatever, here he recalls a bad drawing.

David Niven- David Niven? Apparently so, his first film. Didn't spot him, must have been just milling around in the crowds.

Alfred Newman- He wasn't in it, but he was the "musical director". Plenty of adaptations of old songs: "Camptown Races" (sing dis song, doo dah, doo dah), "I Dream Of Jeannie" (with the light brown haaair- here used as a love theme), and even "Onward Christian Soldiers", an ironic version of which is heard as Brian Donlevy is led off by the vigilantes to be lynched.

KEN

IMDB says this about his last work...

"....But perhaps his most ambitious project was that completed shortly before his death. His symphonic score for the 1925 silent film classic - Phantom Of The Opera, The (1925) - written for an eighty-piece orchestra, was recorded and will hopefully get a release one day. Roy Budd died from a brain haemorrhage on the 7th August 1993 at the tragically early age of 46. Fortunately for devotees of film music, during a relatively short career he managed to cram in over fifty films, several of which found their way onto LPs and latterly CDs.
Gae

NP Always John Williams

And A Beautiful Mind did have a pretty good screenplay... it is still downright amazing that it came from Akiva Goldsman.